


Haunted Vessel

by impishiconism



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Creepy, Dead People, Isolation, Light Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26326294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impishiconism/pseuds/impishiconism
Summary: Deviant's not sure where he's ended up. It's a desolate planet, though he thinks he can see some sort of structure or flora in the distance. More than likely it's a building -- this planet looks cyberformed, metal covered in layers of dust and sand.
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Deviant's not sure where he's ended up. It's a desolate planet, though he thinks he can see some sort of structure or flora in the distance. More than likely it's a building -- this planet looks cyberformed, metal covered in layers of dust and sand.

It looks completely abandoned too. If it weren't finished, he would hear sounds of construction in the distance -- and it's not that big a planet, the noise is loud enough to be heard from the other side -- and if it _were,_ it would be used as a base of operations (especially since there aren't that many cyberformed planets around here).

It's altogether a _really_ sorry excuse for a planet in its current state. No wonder he was dumped here.

He tries to transform and, sure enough, there's still a partial paralytic in his system. Guess he's walking to that distant city. It'll be rough, and there's _already_ grit in his joints, but all in all it probably isn't the worst punishment he could have gotten.

It takes about a day (in this planet's terms) to reach the structures. Deviant _probably_ should have taken breaks, especially with an injured leg, but he doesn't know what the planet's conditions are like after dark, and he wanted to get to shelter in time.

It isn't really a... building, per se. Looks more like a crashed ship. It looks old, and is caked with dirt, and looks bad enough besides that, so it's probably not space-worthy. It's good enough as a shelter, so Deviant pries what he thinks is a door open and enters the ship.

There are bodies. That much he expects -- it's a crashed ship, after all. But he didn't expect them to be _mechanical._ They don't look Cybertronian (or the crew is made entirely of minicons), but he doesn't recognize them. They all look similar -- the same colour of blue-green as the ship, maybe they changed colour when they died too -- and they seem to have similar structures and minimal kibble (maybe they didn't transform. That was a possibility).

It also opens the possibility that Deviant hasn't ended up on a cyberformed planet, it could be _naturally mechanical._

Deviant counts the bodies, of which there are six visible, and piles them in a corner so he can search the ship unimpeded. There looks to be a control panel on the other side of the room -- useless of course, unless he can power it -- and a door leading to a hallway next to it. The rooms are all packed with boxes, no doubt storage. There don't seem to be any rooms for the crew though.

It doesn't matter. If it comes down to it, Deviant can just sleep on the floor in the main room. He looks through the boxes and sees standard supplies. Things to repair the ship, things to presumably repair the people on board, and what _looks_ vaguely like a food source for mechanicals. Maybe he can fuel the controls with this?

He takes a few tubes of the faintly-glowing liquid and goes back to the control room. He pokes around for somewhere to insert the tubes and, miraculously, finds one. He slots one in and watches as the controls boot up.

It's not in Cybertronian, which dismisses the theory of a minicon crew, but with a little tinkering Deviant finds a translation panel and switches it to Cybertronian. The words flicker out and back in, and are comprehensible this time. He searches through the controls, and sure enough, the ship isn't spaceworthy. But he manages to find a communications panel, and if he fuels the panel often enough, it should be able to maintain a constant signal. He sends out a vaguely-encrypted message which asks any neutrals or Autobots to come pick him up (no way is he bringing his potential killers back to this place), and sits tight.


	2. Chapter 2

Day... six, Deviant thinks, of sitting absentmindedly on the ship (which he has learned is called the Flock), trying to conserve energon by not doing anything. He's managed to repair his leg relatively well with the supplies on board, and he _assumes_ the paralytic agent has worn off, but flying would burn too much energy. He's going on a tangent in his own head -- something about how Shockwave approved of his spark-blaster prototypes -- when there's a resounding _crash._

He looks around, and sees that a part of the ship has fallen down. He looks up to where the part of the ship _should_ be, and sure enough, there's a chunk missing from the ceiling. Now that he's _looking,_ though, he notices there's several other chunks missing -- and when he looks down, some of them are above the body-shaped holes in the dust.


	3. Chapter 3

It's getting a bit harder to keep track of the planet's days -- they all seem to blend together -- but his chronometer says it's been about twenty days. Deviant's learned to keep an audial open for signs of any other ship-chunks falling down. He's walking outside (has to stretch his protoform, after all) and as usual, doesn't see anything else on the horizon.

He walks back inside and, oddly enough, finds that one of the bodies he had neatly piled is in the _other_ neat pile. The pile of ship parts. He moves it -- probably no big deal, after all -- and goes on with his day.


	4. Chapter 4

It is day thirty-two when Deviant finds another port into which he can insert a power source. Probably the engines. He puts a tube into it (because why not, there's enough of those things anyway) and watches as the ship's lights slowly turn on. They glow slightly purple, the colour of the material in the tubes. The engine's power source behaves weirdly, however. Instead of the controls, which keep the tube until it drains, at which point Deviant pulls it out, the engine... ingests?? The tube. It takes the whole thing and whisks it away, meaning he can insert another tube immediately.

It might be because he's been alone for thirty days, it might be because he's running low on energon, and it might be because something in the atmosphere is messing with him. But he inserts another tube.

The lights get a little brighter. A few more of them are lighting up too, and they look sorta like the patterns of biolights most Cybertronians have. Must be an aesthetic choice.

He inserts another tube.

The lights get a little brighter.

He inserts another tube.

Another piece of the ship falls down. A little bit of the fuel source drips from the hole in the ceiling. The lights get a little brighter.

He's about to insert another tube. But he hears a strange noise -- and hell if _that_ doesn't set him on edge, because it's been the same set of sounds since he came here -- and he turns around. There's another body. It looks different, though. It's covered in purple from the dripping from the ceiling and -- it's moving.

It had landed face-down (presumably, and that was assuming it had a face at all), but was weakly attempting to get its arms under it.

It looks pathetic. Deviant was always told that mechanical beings were better than organics, but this one looks just as fragile as any human.

So he rolls a tube over to it.

It looks up weakly (so it _does_ have a face! Mystery solved) and grabs the tube, slotting it into a spot on its arm. the tube drains quickly and the little mechanical stands up much more easily. It looks at Deviant with purple optics and says something in another language.

"I'm sorry?" Deviant asks, though it's _incredibly_ staticy from lack of use. He then points to the controls, hoping the little mechanical (which is really starting to grow on him) will understand that he speaks Cybertronian despite his under-used voicebox.

It looks over at the control panel, still broadcasting a signal, and something whirs inside of it.

"Can you hear me now?" The voice that comes out of it is monotonous, obviously a translator. But it's good enough. Deviant nods to answer the question.

"You cannot speak?"

"Not really." Even _Deviant_ can barely understand what he's saying.

"I see the problem. I will fix." He doesn't really _want_ the little thing digging around his internals, but it seems not to take no for an answer and is already digging through boxes for tools.

When it comes back, it's not with tools he recognizes. It's also carrying a large bundle of fuel tubes under its arm. It sets the tools down, and moves to the pile of bodies. This is when Deviant notices -- the living one hasn't changed colour. It's likely the bodies are simply unconscious, and he is proven correct when the first one fuels all the others. Then the original returns to its pile of tools while the others feed the parts of the ship, which, not surprisingly at all by now, transform into even more little mechanicals.

The original (he should stop calling it that, maybe it has a name) waves its hand to get Deviant's attention back, then says "Lie back. I will fix."

Deviant reluctantly does so, and is surprised that it immediately is able to find his voicebox. It looks at it for a few seconds, pulls out a wire, and puts in a different one. "There. Should speak now."

Deviant tries to say "Thank you," and though it's still peppered with static, it's much more bearable.


End file.
